born.” But here, to the woman is given force and speed from God; but only to flee into the wilderness, where she is nourished for the allotted period, which, speaking as to the closing crisis, is three years and a half; for during this period the opportunity of her return was not afforded by the cessation of the dragon’s power.
The dragon here takes the name of serpent as having the form of subtlety, deceit, and malice, that old serpent which is the devil and Satan. It is the enmity, we are to remark, of the dragon and serpent, not the woes on the earth which are described; that is reserved for more detailed account in what follows, at least as to the part material for the Church’s instruction in its passage towards it. And here I must remark the extreme importance to us of connecting the events and agents in the crisis, in principle, character, and progress, with what is passing and the agents we see around us, or it loses its main moral effect, and its whole use for the Church. The Church is not under this woe, I believe, at all, in the final crisis. It is on earth, to the Jewish people, this Son is born; we belong to the heavens, whence Satan is cast out: but, by the ripened fruit in that day, as more fully displayed in subsequent chapters, we learn
